Henry Ward Beecher was a fiery preacher in the 1800’s and was a strong opponent of slavery. Early in his life, there’s a story about how he became the kind of man that he did. When he was a boy, there was a story about something that happened at school. According to the story… his teacher asked another boy a question. The boy answered. But the teacher furious and angrily shouted at the boy: "Sit down!" Confused… the young boy sat down. Several boys were asked the same question and gave the same answer and rebuked the same way and they all sat down.
Finally, Beecher was called upon and gave the same answer as the other boys. "Sit Down!" shouted the teacher. But Beecher refused and insisted that the answer was correct. For a few moments the teacher stormed at him, but seeing Beecher stood his ground the teacher smiled: "Well, boys, you were all correct, but Beecher was the only one sure enough to stand up for it.”
Abraham Lincoln once said “Be sure you put your feet in the right place. Then stand firm.”
Our text this morning is from I Peter … and it deals with holiness (in fact this whole series is about holiness). We’re told (in I Peter) that we are called to be holy. It says we should be holy in all our conduct, and that God has declared - "You shall be holy, for I am holy."
Despite what some theologians will try to tell you holiness, it’s a very simple concept. Holiness simply means “being set apart.” The Sound booth people are separated from you… so they are “holy” in comparison to you. This group of people in this section are separated from the rest of you by this aisle. They are thus “holy” compared to the rest of you. It’s that simple.
• When we’re told GOD is holy – that means God is set apart from everyone else. He is pure, high and lifted up and is above everything that He has created.
• When we’re told God has MADE US HOLY – that means God has set us apart for salvation. When we believed/repent/confess/baptized – we have been made holy - set apart to be His children.
• When we’re told that God expects us to MAKE OURSELVES HOLY – that means God expects us to live differently than the world around us.
But what caught my attention in this morning’s text shows up in I Peter 1:13 “SET YOUR HOPE fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Set your hope fully on the grace. SET YOUR FEET! Know WHERE you’re standing, because if you don’t set your feet right, you might think you’re living holy but you won’t be able to stand.
ILLUS: Back when I was a boy my dad owned a trailer resort on Silver Lake (just outside Angola, IN). He had built a pontoon deck that he anchored about 20 feet off shore and it had a diving board on it. One of the games we kids would play was “King Of The Diving Board.” And I was good at that game! The objective was for one of us to stand on the end of board and try to keep the next person from pushing us off. It was one on one, and invariably I could stand my ground and the other guy would go in the water. I was rarely pushed off… and usually when that happened, I usually took somebody with me.
My point? The ONLY reason I could be so successful was – I set my feet. I knew how to balance myself so that I almost always had the advantage over anyone who challenged me.
In the same way, the only way WE will be able to stand in holiness before God is to set our feet. If we set our hope fully on the grace. If we don’t do that… we WILL NOT stand!!!
(PAUSE) Now, part of the reason we need to set our feet is because we have an enemy. We have someone who is stated goal is to knock us right off the diving board. And who might that be? (SATAN)
1 Peter 5:8 “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” THAT SOMEONE… IS YOU!!! Satan hates God and therefore he hates you. If he can hurt you he can hurt God. And he’d just love to knock you off your holiness
Now, the problem is that too many times church goers help Satan get the job done. And one of the ways Christians help Satan is by not wanting to be too Holy (too committed to God).
ILLUS: One of the most bizarre examples of this - pop singer named Tina Turner. She said, “I’m a Buddhist/Baptist. My training is Baptist, and I can still relate to the Ten Commandments.” She went on to describe why she wanted to embrace Buddhism as well.
Tina wanted to honor the God of the Bible… but NOT too much. She felt it showed how wise and open-minded she was if she tried combining the two.
Now, of course, GOD has never been into “open-mindedness” like that.
Exodus 34:14 says “Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
In the 10 Commandments Exodus 20:3-5 declared "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.”
God says “I AM HOLY.” I am greater than any man-made god, and I ain’t sharing you.
Now, there AREN’T too many Christians who would claim to be a Christian/Muslim OR… a Christian/ Hindu… OR a Christian/ Buddhist. Most people realize how stupid that is!!! But there are way too many church-goers who have a DIFFERENT problem with God. That problem comes when they reject the absolute declarations about who Jesus is.
John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.”
Peter said pretty much the same thing in Acts 4:12. “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name (than Jesus) under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
If you are gonna be HOLY unto God; if you are going to set yourself apart to be HIS child; if you’re going to set your feet for HOLINESS - THIS is the major place you need to stand firm.
1 Peter 1:13 “… set your hope fully ON THE GRACE that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Your HOLINESS; your HOPE; your very ability to know GOD’S GRACE is based on the fact that Jesus Christ is your LORD … and that there is no one else who can get that for you.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus has SAVED you? Do you believe He has FORGIVEN you? Do you believe that He has CHANGED you? Then don’t be ashamed of that! Paul said “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…” Romans 1:16
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT??? Then, set your feet … and stand firm, because that’s where your holiness is.
Now, let’s take this a little deeper. There are some people don’t want to be TOO holy. They don’t want to be TOO religious. They don’t want to be TOO good. George Orwell said it this way: “On the whole, human beings want to be good. But not too good, and not quite all the time.”
ILLUS: I was talking to a young person some time back about a news story. Apparently, I’d just read about someone had said or done something immoral in a class of children and the person I was talking to said: “Well… that was an inappropriate PLACE to do that!” And I smiled at them and said “there’s NO APPROPRIATE place to do that.”
ILLUS: You see, people who don’t want to be TOO holy distinguish between places where bad behavior might be “appropriate.” It kind of works like this (go to side door that opens to the outside). THIS (inside the church bldg.) is an INAPPROPRIATE place to curse. THIS (outside) is OK.
This (inside) is an inappropriate place to get drunk. This (outside) is OK. Fill in the blank - lose my temper, hurt people, gossip, lewd entertainment, etc. etc.
GOD DOESN’T PLAY THAT GAME.
If you’re gonna be holy… you’ve got to do it INside and OUTside the building. In fact, God doesn’t recognize THIS building as that important. As Paul wrote: “Do you not know that YOUR BODY is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” I Corinthians 6:19-20
Holiness means realizing we were bought with a price. We don’t belong to ourselves anymore. We are called to be sold-out, wholly holy unto God.
Lastly, be careful… to stand on HIS holiness. 1 Peter 1:13 says “…set your hope fully on the GRACE …”
GRACE??? Who’s grace? God’s grace. God’s grace is His mercy, His forgiveness and His compassion. Our HOPE and our HOLINESS is based on God’s Standard. It’s not based on my righteousness… but His.
ILLUS: There are a couple different churches out there - called Holiness churches. The HOLINESS churches we’re gonna talk about today are the ones that have a whole list of rules and regulations that define what holiness is, because if you don’t know what’s on the list… you’re probably not holy. Among those rules were these: Playing cards, attending movies, wearing shorts or jeans, swimming in public swimming pools, tobacco or alcohol use and dancing. On the plus side - women have to wear dresses/skirts and men have to wear suits.
Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong if you decide that YOU want to follow those rules. But – let’s be clear - there’s NOTHING in the Bible that says this makes you holy.
Now, why is that a problem???? Because folks tend to make lists that guide their behavior rather than study the Bible to understand why a certain behavior might upset God.
ILLUS: Over the past 30 years in schools, there has been a push for standardized tests and (I’m told) that this has created a bizarre trend in schools where some teachers don’t teach knowledge and thinking… but instead they TEACH for the TEST. And so students don’t learn much of anything except HOW to take the tests.
Similarly, too often there are Christians who approach holiness in the same way. They don’t study the Bible to learn how God wants them live (holiness). INSTEAD, they line up a bunch of rules they think sound holy and they refer to that list once in a while to make sure they’re OK. It’s like Crib Notes. They don’t really have to read the BOOK… They just need to fill in the blanks and check the right boxes and if they do that… then they’re holy. They study for the TEST… but they don’t STUDY to find out what pleases God. And so… when it comes to standing up for morality they don’t know where to put their feet. They end up being easy push-overs when Satan finds a new way to introduce an old sin they haven’t covered.
CLOSE: In closing… as I was preparing this sermon, I realized I might end up giving you the wrong impression about holiness I realized I might have given you the impression. I was afraid I might end up giving the impression that the reason we need to be holy is so that we can SURVIVE in this world.
OH NO, NO, NO! Our holiness isn’t so that we can just survive. It’s far more than that. Our desire for holiness should be more than defensive. It should be aggressively offensive so that we can win the world for Jesus. Remember when I told you about playing King of the diving board? When I was standing at the end of that board, my thoughts weren’t on survival. My thoughts were – I’m taking you down!!!! I was there to win… not survive.
And when it comes to the holiness of God, we’re not in this to survive, we’re in it to win the world for Jesus.
ILLUS: About 300 years before Christ, there was a Greek scientist named Archimedes. He was famous for inventing (among other things) the simple machine called a “lever.” He was so impressed by his discovery that he said “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.”
A lever and place to stand? That’s what the early church did. The lever was Jesus, and the place to stand was upon His righteousness. Thus we’re told “These men who have turned the world upside down…” Acts 17:6
That is what we our standing on God’s holiness will accomplish – turning the world upside down. Not out of our personal SELF-righteousness. Not out of our arrogance and being “holier than thou.”. But because we have set our feet on the holiness of God. It’s there that we set our feet and we move against the very gates of Hell.
